At last month's Baftas all eyes were on Carey Mulligan, who was up for two awards: Leading Actress, which she won to rapturous applause, and Rising Star, which she lost to the shrug-shouldered Twilight star Kristen Stewart. Yet despite Stewart's victory (which she graciously – and correctly – attributed to the fanatical loyalty of the "Twi-Hards"), Mulligan was the real star of the evening, her presence sparking critical plaudits and paparazzi flashbulbs in equal measure. Right now, she seems set to become the UK's biggest screen export.

An Education (2009, E1, 12), which catapulted Mulligan to such prominence, is an agreeably old-fashioned affair – a coming-of-age tale about a brainy girl being led astray by a slick'n'sleazy older man. The setting, efficiently evoked by Danish director Lone Scherfig, is London in the all-but-swinging 60s. Mulligan plays Jenny, a sparky schoolgirl with Oxbridge aspirations whose eyes are opened to a previously unseen underworld of art, parties and Parisian-style infidelity. Suddenly academia seems like a dreadful bore – why study when you can run off into the sunset with a man with a sports car and a strangely sinister love of portable antiquities?

In the spotlit glare of the Bafta stage, Mulligan thanked only screenwriter Nick Hornby for creating this wonderful character, but Jenny's roots lie in a memoir by Lynn Barber, whose voice rings through this intelligent, poignant and very solidly crafted movie. It's hardly groundbreaking fare but in a marketplace in which teenage boys are spoilt for crass choice, how rewarding to find a film which offers young women something other than a patronising sideline (a quality which, incidentally, is also at the heart of Twilight's staggering success story).

Alfred Molina is reliably terrific as Jenny's worrisome father who frets that "the French don't like us, you know that", but the real barnstormer is Emma Thompson, who almost steals the whole movie with a few fleeting scenes as the sternly coiffured headmistress. "I suppose you think I'm a ruined woman," Jenny bemoans as her school life collapses, to which Thompson makes the most of the spectacularly acerbic comeback line, "Oh my dear, you're not a woman…"

Mulligan's stiffest competition in the Bafta Leading Actress category (and, indeed, at tonight's Oscars) was always going to be Meryl Streep, whose lead role in Julie & Julia (2009, Sony, 12) is apparently brilliant if you have any experience of the real Julia Child. I didn't (and still don't) and was thus somewhat startled by the turned-up-to-11 performance with which Streep essays the cook who popularised French cuisine in the US.

If you thought Fanny Cradock was peculiarly mannered then you'll be completely unprepared for the level of high-camp queenery on display here. The routine is so arch that at times it threatens to droop right over into drag, yet I am assured that it is utterly authentic. One would, of course, expect nothing less from Streep, and there's something very touching about the relationship her Julia has with Stanley Tucci's Paul, the devoted husband who proves to be both her rock and her inspiration. As a couple they are terrific, which is more than can be said for Julie and Eric Powell (Amy Adams and Chris Messina), who provide the modern-day section of Julie & Julia. For Nora Ephron's film is based on not one but two books: Child's own memoir, My Life in France, and internet sensation Powell's blog-book about her attempts to cook her way through Child's entire back catalogue. Unfortunately, Powell's character is far less interesting than that of her matronly mentor, creating a broken-backed buffet of a movie which flip-flops between sweet and savoury with disconcerting results.

Ephron is a fine writer but it's significant that her best work (When Harry Met Sally) benefited from the mediation of director Rob Reiner, whose sourpuss style would have added some much needed spice to these proceedings.

I'd love to be able to say something positive about Mister Lonely (2007, ICA, 15) but once you get beyond the fact that it features a small role by Samantha Morton (always a treat), that's about it on the plus points. The plot – if it may be called such – revolves around a community of lookey-likey impersonators presided over by a papal James Fox and a regal Anita Pallenberg. Presumably, it all seemed hilariously quirky and profound in production but, like every other Harmony Korine project to date, it utterly fails to prove that he is (as fawning critics once ridiculously promised) the future of cinema. Not even Werner Herzog wrangling a troop of sky-diving nuns (they have no parachutes but God will save them, apparently) can alleviate the crushing boredom. Sorry but, like Brian, Korine is not the Messiah, he's just a very naughty boy. And quite a dull naughty boy at that.

In Don't Worry About Me (2009, Verve, 15), David Morrissey gets behind the camera to helm a poignant tale which plays like Before Sunset relocated to Liverpool. Writers and stars James Brough and Helen Elizabeth adapt their own stage play, which starts unevenly but finds its feet during a crucial confessional scene that has both personal and spiritual resonance. Morrissey clearly loves both the material and the location, and shoots his home town with the melancholic enthusiasm of a wayward son returning to his roots. Having drawn cheers at its London Film festival premiere last year, this charming oddity seems destined to win word-of-mouth fans, and is on BBC2 tonight. On this evidence, expect to see more of Morrissey in the director's chair.